This invention relates to a knockdown cabinet, that is a cabinet which can be assembled and dis-assembled and which is normally sold in the unassembled condition for easy storage and transport.
Many conventional knockdown cabinets have parts which are formed with holes and the parts are fastened together by screws or bolts or other separate fastening means inserted through these holes. The buyer, who is often inexperienced at assembling such cabinets, has difficulty exactly aligning the holes and the process can be time-consuming.
Knockdown cabinets are known, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,201,428 and 1735375 and U.K. Specification 645808, in which the various parts such as back, sides and top have formations along their edges which can be inter-engaged without using separate fastening members, by relative sliding movement between the parts parallel to those edges. In such known cabinets, the edge formations are complicated to produce and assembly is still difficult and time-consuming. None of these cabinets has a base on which the remainder of the cabinet is supported, instead they are constructed by joining a back, sides and top and then a floor is inserted supported on the sides. The constructions when assembled thus have the sides and back resting on the ground and are not suitable for support on wheels.
An object of the present invention is to construct a cabinet from sheet materials such as metal or alloy so that the sides, back, top, and front where present, are supported on the base which may rest directly on the ground or preferably is mounted on wheels. (The term wheels includes castors or other rolling or sliding members).
To assemble such a cabinet from its parts, the base is first placed on the ground, and then the remainder built up on the base. A further known construction is shown in British patent Specification 2113989 which showns a display stand made from plastics material and having a hinged wall located in an upwardly opening channel on a base which rests on the ground. A top also has a channel which fits over the wall. However, this stand is not constructed from sheet material but is moulded and does not have the necessary strength or rigidity required for use as a cabinet which may need to store a heavy object. The top and bottom edges of the hinged wall are a loose fit in the channels in the base and top and thus the stand has little rigidity.